RIP Nicolas Coster

 

Beloved Soap-Hopper Nicolas Coster Dead at 89: Read His Daughter’s Beautiful Tribute

Soaps

By Charlie Mason

June 27, 2023

 Beloved Soap-Hopper Nicolas Coster Dead at 89: Read His Daughter’s Beautiful Tribute

Soaps

If the stars shone a little dimmer overnight on June 26, here’s why: We lost Nicolas Coster, the daytime great who appeared on more than half a dozen soaps.

In breaking the news via Facebook, daughter Dinneen Coster said, “There is great sadness in my heart this evening. My father… has passed on in Florida at 9:01 pm in the hospital. Please be inspired by his artistic achievements and know he was a real actor’s actor!”

That, he was. Costner brought to life any scene that he entered, radiating the kind of irresistible charisma that they’d bottle if he could. It was in his eyes, his carriage, his delivery… an intangible “something” that could mean mischief, trouble or, perhaps most fascinating of all, absolute sincerity.

Coster made his daytime debut on Young Doctor Malone before moving on to The Secret Storm and Our Private World, a primetime spinoff of As the World Turns starring Eileen Fulton as bitchy Lisa Mitchell. He played Robert Delaney on both Another World and its offshoot Somerset, total baddies on One Life to Live and All My Children and won his overdue first Emmy in 2017 for the web soap The Bay.

But, of course, the role for which Coster will be most fondly remembered could only be that of Santa Barbara pot stirrer Lionel Lockridge, which he played off and on for most of the show’s 1984-93 run. The part fit him like a glove, allowing him to really show off his range, playing heavy drama, goofy comedy and a partnership for the ages with leading lady Louise Sorel, who was Lionel’s wife, Augusta.

“It was an honor to work in a company with him, and I’ll always hold his friendship and his sterling strengths as a professional close to heart,” Santa Barbara castmate A Martinez said on Facebook early on June 27. “Unsolicited one day, he gave me this profoundly useful advice: ‘What you choose to do with a scene doesn’t have to be the probable thing. You can choose any course imaginable –– no matter how unlikely –– as long as it’s possible.’”

In addition to his vast soap resumé, Coster appeared on the big screen in films such as 1976’s All the President’s Men and in primetime on approximately a zillion series, among them Wonder Woman, Charlie’s Angels, Buck Rogers, T.J. Hooker and Star Trek: The Next Generation. He also recurred on The Facts of Life as the moneybags father of snooty Blair Warner.

Concluded Coster’s daughter: “I will remember him as always doing his best and being a great father. Rest in peace.”

NICOLAS, Coster (Nicolas Dwynn Coster)

Born: 12/3/1933, Hamptstead, London, England, U.K.

Died: 6/26/2023, Hallandale Beach, Florida, U.S.A.

 

Nicolas Coster’s westerns – actor:

The Outcast – 1954 (Asa Polsen)

The Court Martial of George Armstrong Custer (TV) – 1977 (General Philip Sheridan)

Little House on the Prairie (TV) – 1978 (Lansford Ingalls)

The Electric Horseman – 1979 (Fitzgerald)

Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (TV) – 1998 (Judge Blaisdale)